Prior to Vatsala Chauhan’s dissertation, the behaviour of tandem promoters had only been explored using synthetic constructs, meaning that the knowledge of the behaviour of natural genes controlled by such promoters was relatively speculative.
“Because we had already linked protein numbers with RNA numbers in single cells and because I was already experienced in using the YFP strain library, I set out to use it to the study of tandem promoters as a regulatory mechanism in normal and in stress conditions”, Chauhan explains.
For her doctoral dissertation, Chauhan used experimental approaches and computational methods. She started by developing a method to predict single-cell distributions of RNA numbers from flow cytometry data. Next, using a strain library of genes tagged with yellow fluorescent protein, she dissected the main factors that control the kinetics of tandem promoters. Finally, she designed a library of synthetic genes controlled by tandem promoters.
“This was a proof-of-concept study to engineer genes with predictable dynamics. Our novel synthetic promoter arrangements exhibited predictable interference, which influences their behaviour in optimal conditions and their responses to antibiotics targeting the core regulators of transcription and supercoiling. This work will help in engineering synthetic genetic circuits with kinetics predictable from their structure,” Chauhan says.
A genetic circuit is an assembly of biological parts coding for RNA or protein. These genetic circuits enable cells to perform biological functions.
Vatsala Chauhan is originally from India. In 2017, she came to Tampere University as a doctoral student in Biomedical Engineering. She started her research career at the Laboratory of Biosystem Dynamics led by Professor Andre Ribeiro.
After completing her doctoral degree, Chauhan will continue her research work as a postdoctoral fellow at Uppsala University, Sweden.
Public Defence on Tuesday 7 November
The doctoral dissertation of MSc Vatsala Chauhan in the field of Single-Cell Systems Biology titled Bacterial Regulatory Mechanisms of Gene Expression During Stress Responses with Focus on Closely Spaced Promoters will be publicly examined at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology of Tampere University at 12 o’clock on Tuesday, 7 November 2023. The venue is Arvo building auditorium A109 (Arvo Ylpön katu 34, 33520 Tampere). The Opponent will be Professor Remus T. Dame from Leiden University, the Netherlands. The Custos will be Professor Andre S. Ribeiro from Tampere University.
The doctoral dissertation is available online.
The public defence can be followed via a remote connection.
Photo: Rahul Jagadeesan